Gary got his gun permit

This is the long-winded and long-awaited follow-up to my visit with Dr. Richard Boohar’s University of Nebraska honors class, Deciding Right and Wrong. I told this story to the students, and let them know that I expected Gary (who had just applied) would indeed be getting his concealed handgun permit within a few weeks. My question to them was whether I should or should not tell this story. We discussed the pros and cons, and in the end, they strongly believed that I should let it rip.

Blogging about concealed handguns is a sure way to attract a lot of spirited comments. I’m taking the plunge anyway, because I think this could provide some insight to some citizens on my discomfort, and because a group of really smart University of Nebraska students felt it was my obligation to do so.

Although I was not in favor of concealed carry, neither was I greatly worried about it. My opposition wasn’t based on fear that permit holders would run amok (the vast majority of perfectly law-abiding citizens) so much as it was on the knowledge that the law was a Swiss cheese of loopholes that would poorly define “law-abiding.” A few pretty untrustworthy people would end up with permits. They would use these in various ways—presenting them as ID when cashing a check, impressing people they meet socially, and who knows what else.

The Virginia Tech shootings exposed one of the glaring loopholes in firearms laws I have testified about during the past 15 years: the law does not effectively prevent some people with serious mental illnesses from obtaining permits or walking into a gun shop and buying a Glock and a Walther.

The second loophole in our State and Federal law is the nature of the criminal convictions that prevent a citizen from obtaining a firearm or a concealed carry permit. Here are some crimes that are not included on the list: stalking, violating a protection order, impersonating a police officer. Conversely, felony convictions such as rolling back an odometer disqualify one from a permit. Plea bargaining contributes to the problem—some people with frightening criminal records have only misdemeanor convictions because the most favorable plea agreements inevitably seem to go to the most prolific criminals, who come to the table with lots of cards to deal.

Gary is the best example I have, so far--though he's not the only one. It’s illegal for me to identify a concealed carry permit holder, so I’ll use the name “Gary.” He’s quite real, though, and he has a newly-minted Nebraska concealed handgun permit. He was convicted of the following crimes:

• impersonating a police officer
• violating a protection order
• possession of methamphetamine
• possession of alprazolam
• possession of marijuana,
• possession of drug paraphernalia
• possession of illegal fireworks.

The first two, impersonating a police officer and violating a protection order, do not prohibit a person from receiving a concealed carry permit. I might also note that his protection order conviction was a plea bargain—he pleaded guilty to one count, while four other counts were dismissed. The felony drug conviction would ordinarily prevent a person from receiving a concealed handgun permit, but in 2006, he received a pardon. The Nebraska Board of Pardons (the Governor, Secretary of State, and Attorney General) granted a pardon, effectively erasing his convictions and restoring his gun rights.

Long before he sought the pardon, Gary had appealed his 1994 drug conviction to the Nebraska Court of Appeals. He lost. When I read their 1997 decision containing a short synopsis of the factual basis of the conviction, I was quite surprised that a pardon was granted.

Gary was stopped by a Nebraska State Patrol trooper for a traffic violation on the Interstate. He was wearing a pistol in a shoulder holder, and the trooper also spotted a bogus badge laying on his console. It turns out that Gary, a State employee at the time, apparently had acquired his own “badge”, custom made, with his employing agencies name engraved upon it. Gary worked for an agency which has no badges. The trooper recalled hearing that this same individual had previously used his “badge” to gain access to a Garth Brooks concert at the Devaney Sports Center, claiming that he was on an investigative mission for his employer.

After the Interstate stop, Gary’s car was searched. The troopers found methamphetamine, marijuana, drug paraphernalia, and another illegal pharmaceutical drug. This was all located in his car, along with a stun gun, several pistols, a shotgun, and a semi-automatic rifle. Interestingly, when Gary was convicted of impersonating a police officer in 1992, the case involved him approaching a carload of teenagers at 48th St. and Madison Ave. in Lincoln, waving a badge, demanding their registration and lecturing them about a traffic infraction.

Gary now has a Nebraska Concealed Handgun Permit, which no doubt will make a nice accessory to go along with his badges.